If you were an HRD professional involved in setting up Project WISE, what issues would you emphasize as you designed and implemented this new program?

Lovelace Health Systems is a health care organization in New Mexico. It employs over 3,700 people in hospitals, specialty clinics, and many primary care clinics located in Albuquerque and various other communities in the state. Seventy percent of its employees receive their health coverage through Lovelace. The state of New Mexico has a death rate from cirrhosis of the liver that is nearly twice the national average, and also has among the highest rates of drug-induced deaths per capita in the nation. This led leaders at Lovelace to look for ways to reduce and prevent substance abuse among their employees. The health system had two voluntary programs in place, an employee assistance program and an employee wellness program. They also began mandatory drug testing of all applicants who were offered employment. Lovelace sought to enhance what it was already doing with a new program called Project WISE. WISE stood for Workplace Initiative in Substance Education. The emphasis of Project WISE was an effort to reduce what was termed “risky” drinking. Employees completed a health risk appraisal, which included questions concerning alcohol use (as well as heart disease, stress, depression, diabetes, nutrition, and cancer risk). Employees whose answers to the alcohol use questions placed them in either the moderate- or high-risk categories were targeted for the new intervention (see Table 11-1 for details). Questions: 1. If you were an HRD professional involved in setting up Project WISE, what issues would you emphasize as you designed and implemented this new program? 2. What ideas do you have for ways to increase awareness of the dangers of risky drinking? 3. How about concerning ways to change employee drinking behaviors? 4. How might you evaluate the success of Project WISE? 5. Are there any potential concerns in regards to collecting employee data that will be used to evaluate whether changes have occurred as a result of the new intervention? Textbook: Werner, J. M., & DeSimone, R. L. (2011). Human Resource Development. Cengage Learning.